Inauguration of KI for Artificial Intelligence

October 9, 2017

The KI for Artificial Intelligence (KIAI) started as the 6th KI on May 16th, 2017.
Artificial intelligence is regarded as the most-important enabling technology for the 4th Industrial Revolution. The establishment of KIAI, with 66 faculty members from 18 Departments/Schools will help KAIST to continue its leading role in this important multi-disciplinary technology.

KAIST had played an important role in artificial intelligence since the early years.
From 1990 to 2002, KAIST hosted the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research(CAIR), the first Engineering Research Centre (ERC) supported by the National Science Foundation (now NRF). Also, from 1998 to 2008, KAIST Brain Science Research Centre (BSRC) served as the main research organization of the Korean BrainTech21/BrainNeuroinformatics Research Program, which pursues the dual research goals to understand the information processing mechanism in the brain and to develop artificial intelligence based on the mechanism. Actually, with the joint efforts of about 25 professors and many graduate students in many Korean universities, BSRC demonstrated Artificial Secretary in 2008, 3 years before Apple Siri was introduced, with functions similar to those of today’s conversational agents, such as Siri, Echo, Nugu, and Giga Genie.

To carry out these initiatives, KIAI was established on May 16th, 2017. A total of 66 professors from 18 departments/schools have expressed their intention to join. (As of September 28, 2017, 22 professors had completed the Joint Appointments.) For the demonstration room and researchers, KIAI currently uses rooms C305, C306, and C307 in the KI Building.

The KIAI now includes two research centres for two national project consortiums on AI. The Centre for Intelligent Digital Companion is leading research on emotional conversational agents for the National AI Flagship Program. Also, the Centre for Advanced Machine Learning Research is leading research on the learning and inference technology for the National Strategic AI Program.